Monday, March 30, 2015

It was another busy weekend!
Saturday I worked at the LQS for the last day of our shop hop. I'm paid in fabric and get to take some of the extra cookies home. Double bonus!!

Sunday I finally surrendered and did some house cleaning. I only spent a couple hours cleaning and moving some out-of-season decorations back to storage but the house just felt "new." If only the weather had been nice enough to open some windows. I'll share pictures of our trip to Bray Farms for Maple Weekend later this week.

The rest of the weekend was spent in my quilt studio...but you knew that! April's Rainbow Scrappy Challenge color was announced and it's Purple!!!!!! Swoon!! My fav color!!! I did some pressing and cutting but don't have much to show yet.

I also finished the last setting rosette for my Value Proposition project. I can't say that this is my fav block but it's not as bad as I was worried it would be either. The colors are all coordinated from the red stripe but that fabric is just bright and I wouldn't otherwise put all 4 fabrics together. I'm not worried tho, it will all look fine tucked amongst the other blocks in the final quilt.

And just to share how I have been tracking my progress, it's been on an index card tucked into the light switch for my studio. I kitted 2 of the 3 remaining blocks and I've made a good start on stitching one of them already. As I said last week, LOTS of sashing left to go but I've got my nose to the grindstone...

Friday, March 27, 2015

I know...it's hard to tell it's me without any pictures but Momma refused to take a picture of my first gift of the season. I mean, come on, just cuz it has a tail and rhymes with "cat" doesn't make it that bad, does it? I heard her ewwww with delight.

I layed him all gentle on the boot mat and scratched at the window to tell you he was there before I went off gift gathering again. I had to redeem myself after the whole crow debacle, didn't I??!!??

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

We're gonna pretend like I didn't forget to post this last week, ok??!!

Welcome to another edition of Hexie Linky Party for Hexie-aholics!!!

I finished yet another rosette from my Value Proposition project last night!

These are just laid out randomly to see if I need any more colors to keep it balanced. Do you see any "missing" colors? I'm thinking red and yellow/gold.Hopefully you can see that each block has a dark turquiose in it. I really like the triple sashing - the darker round adds a nice touch.

That brings my finished total to 3 half rosettes and 15 whole rosettes!! WooHoo!! I only need to finish 1 half (already kitted) and 3 full rosettes (hope to kit them this weekend) to have all the blocks completed.

The amount of sashing still needed seems daunting when you look at the blocks laid out but the end is still in sight! I've got a couple conferences coming in the next month so I think I'll be able to finish this in the "near" future with some dedication. That's a good idea because my first trunk show is just 196 days away and I have a lot of hexie UFOs to work on...LOL.

What have you been working on?? Please share!! We don't care if it's a UFO, WIP or PIG...

Monday, March 23, 2015

I had an excellent weekend!! Saturday afternoon I showed my friend Kim how to use her new sewing machine. She plied me with wine and brownies - our usual M.O. - LOL!!

The rest of the weekend was spent leisurely sewing and listening to audio books in my studio. It was heaven.

I completed 9 yellow box kite blocks for the RSC15. I might get a few more done before the end of the month but it's going to be a busy week so I'm not holding my breath. I have the strips all cut so I might just work on them another month. One can never have enough yellow :)

I also completed 5 yellow puss in the corner D4P blocks and, obviously, several other colors as well. I really just periodically paw thru my pile of 2.5" blocks to find nice matches. So far I have over a 100 of these little 4.5" blocks. I'm still debating if I want every other block in the quilt to be a solid instead of pieced block. The quilt would come together faster, with fewer seams to match, and you would possibly be able to see the pieced blocks better, but I just adore making these and can't imagine stopping just cuz I had enough for a quilt...

I also worked on my hexie fabric I-spy quilt. I stopped by the LQS for more black-on-blacks and was able to make quite some progress on getting the blocks made and trimmed. These blocks are 3/4" smaller than the original blocks shown a few weeks ago but now I'm wondering if I need to get that last 1/4" trimmed off. I'm almost thinking it wouldn't be worth the effort since I can trim them to 6.75" in a flash if I leave 5/8" black past each corner of the center charm square. That's probably clear as mud but I think I just talked myself out of more trimming, Thanks for listening!

I sewed these up this morning and I think there are 4 more to sew up tonight. Of course then there are the 4 new hexie fabrics I still need to cut into charm squares. It's a never ending process LOL.

I have no idea when I'll be putting the i-spy blocks together since I'm still finding hexie fabrics. (Do you have any hexie fabrics I could barter for??) The quilt certainly won't be finished for some time since there are new fabrics all the time so I'm torn - make today's pile into a partial top just so it's not another pile in the studio or wait until much closer to my hexie trunk shows to have a bigger pile with more variety before assembly...there are nearly 40 blocks at this time. My other option is to make these into 4 patches so just get started on assembly. What would you do? Keep the pile growing for as long as possible or start assembly just to get the pile out of the way?

PS - did anyone notice that I missed HeLP last week? I noticed just before I hit publish on the Feline Friday post. Oops - clearly too much was going on with my Dad in the hospital. Anyone interested in having HeLP this Wednesday??!!

Monday, March 16, 2015

Well, if there is any bright side to spending the last 4 days in the CTICU before, during and after Dad's open heart surgery it was plenty of time to work on hexies.

I don't know about you other hexie-ologists, but I use a needle dome to pre-thread 10 needles at a time. I finished 18 threads which for me is a ton of stitching. Luckily, I didn't break through my callous until just before heading home yesterday. I would guess that these domes would work for other stitchers as well. I think Clover makes them and they are about $10. Don't tell but I have two - one for home and one for travel projects.

Besides pacing, eating, more pacing, talking, more pacing, long daily drives and a birthday party, I was able to finish the outer 2 rounds on this rosette....

...and the light inner row of sashing on each of these half-rosettes and even add the central "darker" sashing row to the top half-rosettes. I wanted to add some of the inner sashing just to see how it would look. Me thinks I like it!

Dad is doing well - he feels better, sleeps better and can keep food down but his heart rhythm still is irregular. Because he is on a temporary pacemaker he can't get out of bed yet Lunchtime update - he's out of bed! WooHoo!!! It's still one day at a time but there has been progress :)

Friday, March 13, 2015

I'm not really sure it was the best idea for you, grandMomma and Uncle Tommy to get drive-thru foods the last two nights; even though it was two vvvvveeeeeerrrrrryyyyy long days at the CTICU after grandPoppa's open heart surgeries.

Monday, March 09, 2015

Finished another half/setting rosette! It might be one of my favorites so far.Started another full size - I've redesigned it a little and it's hard to tell in the photo but I used a stripe in the 2nd row.

Friday night was Hexie Club and Saturday I taught the second half of a quilting 101 class. Sunday morning, of course, was the day we Fall Back but we also had a rescue call shortly after the clocks were changed - wanna talk about confusing!! I had absolutely no idea what time it was. I really do despise the changing of the clocks... And I never got back to bed. It was a slowwwww Sunday.

The rest of Sunday was pretty much spent on prepping a class sample for an upcoming Seminole Piecing class and going to Cartwright's Maple Tree Inn with the family. CMPT is a sure sign that spring is coming - it's only open 2 months of the year. It's still just a tad early for the sap to be running but it's always a treat to get buckwheat pancakes and local maple syrup. Later this month will be two NY Maple Weekends. Of the 54 participating maple producers from around the state, 19 are in my county!!

The other signs of spring? 1. My cardinals have returned and were singing up a storm this morning. 2. The great wanderer (who wanted in and out ALL day yesterday - I need a revolving door!) didn't come back home before I left for work this morning. I'm sure he's having a ball!

I see it, Momma, I see it!! Spring is almost to the neighbors house at the corner!!

Monday, March 02, 2015

Saturday evening I attended a chili cook-off at one of the local churches. It was free-will-offering for eat-all-you-can-eat and there was a Chinese Basket Auction as well. All the proceeds went to our local food pantry. There were 14 chilies to test. My first choice was tied for 2nd place and my 2nd choice (pulled pork but it was too sweet) won first place. It was a lot of fun and already can't wait for next year's cook-off!!

First order of business over the weekend was to kit up most of my remaining Value Proposition blocks. I pulled in some new teal fabrics for these 4 kits. I'll have to finish these and then lay out all the blocks before cutting the last 2 kits in case I want to de/emphasize any colors in this scrappy project.

Second order of business was to do just a little more pink for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I found 1 of the box kites when unpacking the box I had packed for my quilting 101 class and then I made 2 more, bringing the total to a respectable 8. I made just one pink basket block and worked on 4 D4P Puss in the Corner blocks (only 1 is shown tho).

Next I worked on this months scrap color: Yellow!!! I kitted 8 box kite blocks (yes I use cheap hair clips from Dollar General to separate the parts) and cut or found strips for at least 5 or 6 more. Can you tell I like yellow??!! I also worked on starting some D4P blocks and started prepping strips for 3 basket blocks.

I finally got all my hexie fabrics cut for my iSpy project. I do have a pack of 5 more fabrics that I am debating to use. They are not good quality fabric but I love the designs so they will probably be next on the cutting mat. I saved 2 others - 1 for a project for our hexie club (hopefully there will be a charm square left) and the other is a rather large design that won't show well in an iSpy so I think I'll just save it for a doll quilt backing.

Last but not least, I've made some progress on rosette #1. It's probably a little hard to tell but I have 7 finished hexagons to be added to the right side of the outer row and the last mostly-black hexie from the 2nd row is almost finished. I just need to finish 4 more outer row hexagons to finish this rosette. I think I'll have the hexies made in 4 lunch hours and then I'll have to put this together sitting at the table since it's already a monster piece. I never did get to picking fabrics for the next rosette...

Phew...it was a fun but busy weekend and other than a crockpot meal, never did get to the housework. Darn!